


Until the choker fits

by jyuukyuu



Category: iKON (Korea Band)
Genre: Angst, Eating Disorders, Fluff and Angst, Insecure Jinhwan, Junhwe and Hanbin didn't mean to do it, Self-Esteem Issues, The fluff comes soon enough, Weight Issues, iKON TV
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-15
Updated: 2019-01-15
Packaged: 2019-10-10 20:42:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17433197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jyuukyuu/pseuds/jyuukyuu
Summary: They had meant it as a joke, he knew that.-Your choker’s too tight.--It digs into your skin.--You can see excess fat.-The voices and laugher of his members echoed in his head, mocking him.-How about a diet project?-Jinhwan pulled the choker out of his pocket, staring at it. “I’ll make you fit”, he mumbled.He started that evening by pretending to be asleep when Donghyuk came to collect him for dinner.





	Until the choker fits

**Author's Note:**

> So for this fic, I'm completely ignoring the events of iKON TV that follow this, because frankly it's too much effort to navigate that. So, they are filming iKON TV, but at least for now, it's a chill, vlogging period and nothing else. No trips or challenges. Thanks for reading!

Jinhwan had really liked his look, putting it together that morning. Now, he couldn’t stand to see his own reflection.

_Your choker’s too tight._

_It digs into your skin._

_You can see excess fat._

The voices and laugher of his members echoed in his head, mocking him.

He’d taken the choker off as soon as possible, aggressively stuffing it into his pocket.

You should lose weight, how about a diet project?

Hanbin, of all people, should have… He shouldn’t have…  
  
Jinhwan fell into bed, clothes still on, and curled up under the covers. Screwing his eyes shut didn’t do anything to silence the thoughts, nor did hiding from the people he cared about- that only made them worse. But he didn’t want to face his members, just then. He felt embarrassed. Hanbin and Junhwe- why did Junhwe bring it up, why did he have to- probably didn’t even remember what they’d said, wouldn’t think of it again. Jinhwan couldn’t stop.

_How about a diet project?_

Jinhwan pulled the choker out of his pocket, staring at it. “I’ll make you fit”, he mumbled.  
  
He started that evening by pretending to be asleep when Donghyuk came to collect him for dinner.

 

\--

 

Jinhwan was sensitive, when it came to his weight. He didn’t like to let other people know that, but he was. He worried about his appearance quite a bit- not only his height, or his face, or even his weight, but everything.

Height and weight were particularly delicate topics.  
  
What Junhwe and Hanbin said that afternoon- just _teasing_ , trying to make fun, innocent intentions and all- was the equivalent of taking his insecurities, making a pile of them, and then setting fire to that pile. After running it over with a tractor.

He sighed as he looked himself over in the mirror. He stood in front of it in only underwear, judging himself- this was a habit he was supposed to have quit years ago, damnit, yet here he was again.

He pinched his neck. His stomach. His thighs. Upper arms. Hips.

_Pudgy_.

Jinhwan sneered at his reflection, then supressed a sob. Damnit.

He chose oversized clothes- his usual skinny jeans were not a good fit for the day’s mood- and pulled a beanie over his hair rather than try to remedy it. It was eight AM, and he was preparing to go for a walk before the others woke up. Walking burned around 100 calories per hour, which would put him at a negative calorie count. It was a good start to a surely long, tiring day.

When he left the dorms, no one was there. When he came back 100 calories later, Jiwon and Donghyuk were messing around in the kitchen. It came as no surprise that Junhwe was still in bed.

“Where’d you go?” Jiwon asked. He was aggressively- clumsily- whisking a bowl of what might be eggs. At the same time, Donghyuk was putting pieces of butter in a pan, so it seemed likely. _Fat, fried in fat. Charming. How many calories are in an egg? I’ll have to check._  
  
“For a walk”, Jinhwan replied.

“We’re making breakfast, want some?”

“I already ate”, he lied.  
  
“I don’t see your dishes anywhere”, Donghyuk noted.

“I visited a café on my walk”, Jinhwan said. That sounded believable, he thought. It was half the reason he’d gone on a walk this early in the first place- no one would think he hadn’t eaten, and he would be left alone.

Jiwon nodded and turned back to the eggs. Donghyuk slapped his arm when some of it spilled over the edge of the bowl, and Jiwon’s whining could be heard down the hallway as Jinhwan approached his own room.

What to do now? Jinhwan didn’t want to do anything. Actually, he felt a surge of anxiety at every option he considered. Spend the whole day in his room, doing nothing, stuck with your own thoughts? No. Hang out with members? He wasn’t sure he’d be able to fake a cheery mood that day. Go out again? He was tired.

Wait, he had to film for iKON TV. He completely forgot! How did he forget? Damnit. He picked the camera up from where he’d shucked it onto a shelf after coming home the previous night. He considered his clothes, yes, they were fine to film in.

But was he? The moment he turned the camera on, he felt his throat close up and could just _see_ the softness of his jawline, the pudginess of his neck.  
  
He turned off and put the camera down again, stomach twisting- both from self-loathing and hunger. He hadn’t eaten in, what was it… Not quite 24 hours, maybe twenty. He felt strangely proud of this fact.

How much weight did he have to lose? He went to the bathroom, made sure to close and lock the door after himself, and pulled out the scale from beneath the sink. 60 kilos. Looking up, he faced himself in the mirror. How much weight did he have to lose? Not too much. He didn’t know quite how to estimate it, so he decided that when the choker fit him well, he’d be done. Until then…  
  
He stayed in his room, scrolling through SNS and watching YouTube videos, until one PM. The other members had gone out, taking advantage of their day off, so the apartment was silent when he finally left his room and stepped into the kitchen. He guessed that it had been about 24 hours since he last ate, now, and the dizziness and a headache were catching up to him, so he decided he had to eat something.

He knew that starving yourself wasn’t healthy, so he didn’t plan on doing that. Just, for a little while, he’d eat less- maybe half of what he usually did, just until the choker fit. He’d forfeit fatty, greasy foods, opting instead for vegetables. Meat and white rice were notorious weight-gain offenders, as well… He’d miss those.

He looked through the fridge and cupboards for what felt like hours. Not for lack of finding anything, but for lack of finding anything that appealed to him. He didn’t have an appetite, whatsoever. Leaning against the counter, he sighed, closing his eyes in frustration.

Ten minutes later, he left the kitchen. In his hand, he carried a bowl of grapes.

At least it was something.

 

\--

 

The sounds of a door opening, laughter, and a door closing interrupted Jinhwan’s workout. He was on his 80th sit-up after a couple rounds of squats and push-ups, and he wasn’t feeling too good, so he took that as his cue to stop and see what his members were up to.

Jiwon, Donghyuk, Chanwoo, and Yunhyeong had settled down onto the downstairs couch. Junhwe was pulling snacks out of the cupboards, and Hanbin was nowhere to be seen. At the sight of Junhwe, and the calorie-packed snacks in his hands, Jinhwan hesitated. However, it was too late. The second Jiwon spotted him, his name was called out and he felt obligated to join the five of them on the big couch.

“Have a good day?” he asked them, denying Junhwe with a polite smile and a shake of the head when the younger man reached out a bowl of cheetos to him. He seemed not to think of it as odd, moving on to offer some to Chanwoo instead.

“Yeah, we did. I got this new idea for a track- I’m gonna go work on it tomorrow, I think. Oh, and Donghyuk met a girl!”  
  
Blushing, Donghyuk was quick to shove Jiwon. “I did not!” Upon seeing Jinhwan’s inquisitive look, he continued. “Well, I met a girl, yes. I met a lot of people today! Guys and girls! And she was _not_ giving me any kind of eyes-"

“She was!”

“No!”  
  
Jinhwan followed the interaction as if the spoken word was a tennis ball at a particularly intense game, launching back and forth between eager opponents. Donghyuk was kind of cute when flustered, and Jiwon was having way too much fun teasing him.  
  
“How was your day, then?” Junhwe wondered, turning to Jinhwan. 

“Good”, he responded.

“‘Good’? That’s it?” Junhwe smiled in his teasing way, but that smile didn’t make Jinhwan want to rip out his intestines any less.

“I didn’t do anything today”, he explained. “So I don’t have anything to talk about.”

His tone was apparently not quite usual, judging by the confused look in Junhwe’s eyes. He began to worry that he’d sounded cold- he was still wound tight from the comments made the previous day. Sighing, he apologised. “I’m tired, sorry if I sound snappy.”

Junhwe smiled, shrugging. “It happens.” He looked somewhat relieved, though.

Thankfully, no one had been following their conversation- Donghyuk and Jiwon still arguing about the girl- who was apparently a waitress at the restaurant they visited- and Yunhyeong deeply focused on his phone- some social media or other, most likely.

“Get any footage for iKON TV?”

Jinhwan sighed. “No.”

“Bad PD!” Junhwe teased, grinning.

Smiling softly (he couldn’t muster anything more energetic, not with Junhwe’s gleaming eyes in front of him and his cruel words still reverberating inside his head), he leaned back against the couch, arms crossed over his chest. “Yeah.”

 

\--

 

Yunhyeong was coerced into making them dinner that evening. He’d been finally won over when Jiwon- manipulatively- suggested that it would make good footage for their new show. Jinhwan rolled his eyes, but agreed to help out with cooking. It would keep his mind off of things, and he’d have some sort of power over what went on his plate.

Unfortunately, the guys’ ideas were bad. For him.

_Rice and pork? Really?_

He didn’t know what he’d done to deserve this. Either way, he got to it, boiling the rice and collecting a number of vegetables to chop up for a salad. He’d put a regular amount of food on his plate, but most of it would be low on calories. He could do this. He could pull this off. He had done this before. Not a lot of times, but a few, just a week every now and then, but he had figured out some methods and ways to appear normal.  
  
Jinhwan didn’t like lying. He hated it, when done to him, and guilt pooled in his stomach at the thoughts floating around his head. Thoughts about how to get away with eating little, how to appear like nothing was out of the ordinary at all while he did it. He knew the members would disapprove, if they knew. But he just… had to.

Before it had just been his own mind saying it. Then, some fans. Now, Junhwe and Hanbin had done so, and that only strengthened his resolve.

Until the choker fit.

**Author's Note:**

> I was feeling quite angsty tonight and wrote this to put the feeling somewhere else.
> 
> I'm sorry, hahah. Hope you enjoy it!


End file.
